author
Bernard Moses
1846–1930
A pioneer in the study of Latin America, this Berkeley professor helped shape how American students understood Spanish colonial rule in the Americas. He also stepped into public service, bringing his historical and political interests into the administration of U.S. education policy in the Philippines.
1 Audiobook
Spanish colonial literature in South America
by Bernard Moses
About the author
Born in Connecticut in 1846, Bernard Norton Moses studied at the University of Michigan and later earned a doctorate at Heidelberg before joining the University of California in 1876. He spent decades at Berkeley as a professor of history and political science, and he is remembered as an early American scholar of Latin American history and Spanish colonial institutions.
His books explored how Spain established and governed its empire in the Americas, including The Establishment of Spanish Rule in America and Spain's Declining Power in South America. At a time when the field was still developing in the United States, his work helped open Latin American history to a wider academic audience.
Moses also served in government, including work connected to public instruction in the Philippines during the American colonial period. That mix of scholarship and public service gave his career an unusually broad reach, linking university life, international history, and policy.